"Parrot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is a puzzle to Carol Quinton, the mystery of it haunts him. In every shadow he sees a black mask, at the slightest sound his blood runs cold, the creaking of the boughs above are to him the echo of pursuing hoofs, and the cry of the parrot, that sinister yell which accompanied his fall. Even the stars are flashing eyes, the moon an enemy, and ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... the heroic appeal of the story is of a sane type and not abnormal there will be created naturally within the boy a desire to emulate the good deeds of the hero in the everyday life of the camp, which is much better than the parrot-like vocalization unfortunately many times encouraged by ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... animals may be studied, using the same order and general method of treatment: pigeon, cat, canary, guinea pig, white mouse, raccoon, squirrel, parrot. ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... acre—not a rood of it; sold every square yard of it to throw the money into the Fenian treasury. Rifled artillery, Colt's revolvers, Remington's, and Parrot guns have walked ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... ole parrot what had once 'longed ter her brother who wus a sea captain. Dat wus de cussingest thing I ever seed an' he'd cuss ever'body an' ever'thing. One day two neighborhood men wus passin' when dey heard somebody ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... summoned, brought in first some dry biscuits in deep tin boxes, those crisp, insipid English cakes which seem to have been made for a parrot's beak, and soldered into metal cases for a voyage round the world. Next she fetched some little gray linen doilies, folded square, those tea-napkins which in thrifty families never get washed. A third time she came in with ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... anything of the kind. She looked about her on all sides, and then ran hither and thither, picking the fruit from the trees and the flowers from the beds, while her little dog Frillikin (who was as green as a parrot, had only one ear, and could dance deliciously) capered in front of her, yapping his loudest, and amusing everybody ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... talking at full pitch of their lungs; gala elephants sheathed in cloth of gold, their trunks and foreheads patterned in divers colours; scarlet outriders clearing a pathway through the maze of turbans that bobbed to and fro like a bed of parrot-tulips in a wind. Crimson, agate, and apricot, copper and flame colour, greens and yellows; every conceivable harmony and discord; nothing to rival it anywhere, Sir Lakshman told Roy; save perhaps ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... certain alluring limb which he had been eying longingly for some little time, he bolted up the trunk of the overspreading tree, to hang by his toes, and swing daringly to and fro as some of them had seen a yellow-headed, green-bodied poll-parrot do from ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... he should not in the least discover Mrs. Farrinder's real opinion, and her dissimulation added to his impression that she was a woman with a policy. It was none of his business whether in her heart she thought Verena a parrot or a genius; it was perceptible to him that she saw she would be effective, would help the cause. He stood almost appalled for a moment, as he said to himself that she would take her up and the girl ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... it were, a swath mown in the deep pine forest—the labor of a poor ignorant being, who, like the parrot, can talk and palaver with simple unmeaningness, but ignorant of the world beyond a radius of ten miles. The people, for the most part, break up their ground with one horse or ox, as the case may be, their plows ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear
... accessories that meant so much—the smell of violets, of good tobacco, of fragrant coffee; the gleaming damasks, china and silver of the breakfast table; the trim, fresh-looking maid, with her white cap, apron, and cuffs, who came and went; the thoroughbred setter dozing in the sun, and the parrot dozing and chuckling to himself on his perch upon ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... queer mess of Puritans," reflected Randolph Fitts. "You know that parrot of old Bob Carr's? Well, he took it out and wrung its neck last night,—after all the time, and trouble, and patience he spent in giving her a swell private education. There never was a bird that could swear so copiously as that bird of Bob's. He taught her every thing she knew. He ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... very numerous, are not indigenous to this part of the country, but about a century ago escaped from the various missions of Upper California, at which they had been bred, and since have propagated in incredible numbers; also the grouse, the prairie hen, the partridge, the quail, the green parrot, the blackbird, and many others which I cannot name, not knowing their generic denomination. The water-fowls are plentiful, such as swans, geese, ducks of many different species, and the Canadian geese with their long black necks, which, from November to March, ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... "Yes, parrot, 'came after you,'" said Mrs. Bates. "I told you, you'd no great amount of sense. I'm speakin' plain, ain't I? I don't see much here to hold you. I want you should throw a few traps, whatever you are ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... man!' cried Mrs. Halliss again, impatiently; 'don't stand talkin' and sermonin' about it there no longer like a poll parrot, but just you run along and send in the milk, like a dear, will you? or that dear little lady'll have to be waitin' for her tea—and her with a month-old baby, too, the pretty thing, ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... around. It bore on a huge black body, and was reflected with a red glow from huge eyes, and the creature backed again into the cave. Back and forth across the mouth of the cavern the light played, and the watchers caught a glimpse of a huge parrot beak which could have engulfed a freight car. From the cavern projected twisting tentacles of gargantuan dimensions, and red eyes, thirty feet in diameter, glared balefully at them. For several minutes the light of the submarine played across the mouth of the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... handle and ribs are pure gold, tipped with rubies and diamonds, the silken covering bordered with thirty-two fringed loops of pearls, and "also appropriately decorated with the feathers of the peacock, heron, parrot, and goose."—Birdwood, "Indian Arts," ii. ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... up a little convent not far from the college. They attempted to keep a school as a means of support, but had a very difficult time. Once, it is told, they were reduced to such poverty that they had to sell a parrot, which they had as a pet, in order to save themselves from starvation. These women, barefooted, according to the rule of their order, came of noble blood and had been born to luxury. One of them was Mary de la Marche, who advertised in the newspaper ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... This was lucky, for my wrath flamed again. It was really cooling, as I tried to work out responsibility and adjust penalties. But parrots! Any person who wants to keep a parrot should go and live on an island alone ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... as well be a peacock; to say pretty things, one might better be a well-trained parrot; to grace the court or the salon, I had as soon be a statue in the corner—it has more comfort, more security; to be admired, to hear fine compliments—well, you know that is the part of a pet poodle. I say, captain, to be happy one must be ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... velvet calotte. He looked more like an invalid basking in the sun with a shawl over his legs than he did like the hero of my imagination, and the only time he did look at all military was when he turned sharply to his parrot, who kept up an incessant chattering, and said, in a voice full of command, "Taci!" which the parrot did not in the least seem to mind (I hope Garibaldi's soldiers obeyed ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... tent screeched a parrot, sat ministering to the wounds of the other family pet, a badly singed cat. The number of canaries, parrots, dogs and cats was one of the ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... prince, if I had never seen any one but themselves, I should have remained very happy. One of the windows of my tower overlooked a long avenue shaded with trees, so that I had never seen in it a human creature. One day, however, as I was talking at this window with my parrot, I perceived a young gentleman who was listening to our conversation. As I had never seen a man, but in pictures, I was not sorry for the opportunity of gratifying my curiosity. I thought him a very pleasing object, and he at length bowed in the most respectful ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... method of learning things by rote, and reciting them parrot-like in the schoolroom, rested on the truth that a thing merely read or heard, and never verbally reproduced, contracts the weakest possible adhesion in the mind. Verbal recitation or reproduction is thus a highly important ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... man. To quote two instances only which justify doubt—and to take birds this time, by way of a change—a pigeon will swallow opium enough to kill a man, and will not be in the least affected by it; and parsley, which is an innocent herb in the stomach of a human being, is deadly poison to a parrot. ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... twenty-one years and four feet in height.[B] "His colour was coppery, the fell over the body was almost furry, being nearly half an inch long, and his hands were very delicate. On his head he wore a bonnet of a priestly form, decorated with a bunch of parrot feathers, and a broad strip ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson
... was now in sight. A King's ship, the Swallow (Captain Chaloner Ogle), discovered Roberts's ships at Parrot Island, and, pretending to fly from them, was followed out to sea by one of the pirates. A fight took place, and after two hours the pirates struck, flinging overboard their black flag "that it might not rise in Judgement over them." The Swallow returned in a few days ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... his throat; but he took off the hat courteously as he saw Mark. He was a little old man, with a high brick-red colour on his smooth, scarcely wrinkled cheeks, a big aquiline nose, a wide thin-lipped mouth, and sharp little grey eyes, which he cocked sideways at one like an angry parrot. ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... paused before the cage of a parrot on a stand at the end of the porch. The bird sidled over to her on stiff legs, cocked upon her a leering, yellow eye and said in wheedling tones, "Pretty girl, pretty girl!" But then it harshly screeched, "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!" This laughter ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... four sous a pound. Blacked and dried out meat that couldn't find a purchaser. She would mix this with potatoes for a stew. On other occasions, when she had some wine, she treated herself to a sop, a true parrot's pottage. Two sous' worth of Italian cheese, bushels of white potatoes, quarts of dry beans, cooked in their own juice, these also were dainties she was not often able to indulge in now. She came down to leavings from low eating dens, where for a sou she had ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... a sudden jerk of his body that might have been intended for a bow. Before Keep could interrupt him, like a parrot reciting ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... vernacular came in, she replied that that would come to me later—that I must "open my mouth and shut my eyes while she gave me something to make me wise." A solemn awe not unmixed with envy pervaded the schoolroom as I, parrot-like, rattled off this valueless jargon of a people dead for ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... round of the vessel, the Sub explaining everything to them in detail. Already the lads had taken a great fancy to the Sub, and Fox reciprocated the sentiment. He had a way about him that enabled him to give particulars of the most intricate mechanism without having to resort to dry, parrot-like instruction. ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... to himself; and you think you would like such a time yourself, if only Nelly and Charlie could be there with you. But this thought does not come till afterward; for the time you are nothing but Crusoe; you are living in his cave with Poll the parrot, and are looking out for ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... Her husband, for all his serious manner, had a real boy's love of a lark, and he aided and abetted her in all sorts of whimsical devices. They owned a dog who was only less dear than the baby, a cat only less dear than the dog, a parrot whose education required constant supervision, and a hutch of ring-doves whose melancholy little "whuddering" coos were the delight of Rose the less. The house seemed astir with young life all over. The only elderly thing in it was the cook, who had the reputation of a dreadful temper; only, ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... boy has filled your head with enough nonsense to last a lifetime. I would not be such a parrot. I want to finish ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... not cease running until he reached the witch's tower. When he arrived, the old wretch seized the jar and flung all the contents at him, thinking that it was the water of many colours, and that he would be changed by it into a parrot; but as it was pure and clear water, the boy only became handsomer than ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... of mortality has just occurred, which has favoured the conversation of the clubs, and thrown the west end into condolence and confusion for the last twenty-four hours. Colonel O'Kelly's famous parrot is dead. The stories told of this surprising bird have long stretched public credulity to its utmost extent. But if even the half of what is told be true, it exhibited the most singular sagacity. Not having seen it myself, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... unclosed as I worked past him, and he exclaimed in a harsh, croaking voice, 'One eye!' Thereupon two or three queer people poked their heads out of the coach window. There was one old woman with false teeth, in an unpleasant state of decay, and a voice like a parrot. 'One eye!' she shrieked, as she gazed on me with an eye as stony as the coachman. A pale, simpering miss smirked in my face, and cried, 'One eye!' and a military gentleman, with a ghastly frown, hissed forth the ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... not having been invited to dine, or else in a desperate hurry to get on to a larger party or a ball. The larger parties were given generally on Saturday evenings; and then, amid a crushing crowd and a din which recalled the Parrot-House at the Zoo, one might rub shoulders with all the famous men and women of the time. When Mr. St. Barbe in Endymion attended a gathering of this kind, he said to his companion, "I daresay that Ambassador ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... exploded with indignation, continuing to give a lifelike imitation of a rumpled parrot. "I 'ad trouble enough wif you at Bermondsey Ol' Stairs, hover that quid you promised, didn't I? Sing it! ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... rapped out the words in tones of unusual vigour, a little, stout, old gentleman, opening a door behind Gotthold, received them fairly in the face. With his parrot's beak for a nose, his pursed mouth, his little goggling eyes, he was the picture of formality; and in ordinary circumstances, strutting behind the drum of his corporation, he impressed the beholder with a certain air of frozen ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... several maid-servants that one would suppose she had selected with care, since it can not be by mere chance that they are all pretty, she has, after the fashion of old maids, various animals to keep her company—a parrot, a little dog whose coat is of the whitest, and two or three cats, so tame and sociable that they jump up on one in the ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... sowing! Like fame, it gathers strength by going.' 'Heyday!' the flippant tongue replies, How solemn is the fool, how wise! Is nature's choicest gift debarred? Nay, frown not; for I will be heard. Women of late are finely ridden, A parrot's privilege forbidden! You praise his talk, his squalling song; But wives are always in the wrong.' 20 Now reputations flew in pieces, Of mothers, daughters, aunts, and nieces. She ran the parrot's language o'er, Bawd, hussy, drunkard, slattern, whore; On all the sex ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... marry—all that sort of rot. It was rot. I always knew it was. I've proved it. She would have come to me in any case. And as for success—it doesn't depend on things of that sort. I've proved that too. But he—Jack—got hold of the same infernal parrot-cry. Oh, I'm sorry, sir," he glanced upwards for a second with working lips. "I can't dress this up in polite language. Jack said to my boy Robin what you had said to me. And ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... identical pigment sold under that name in our colour shops, and so extensively used in landscape drawing by the limner. I then dissected and laid open the circular or ring-like brain that surrounds the creature's parrot-like beak, as if its thinking part had no other vocation than simply to take care of the mouth and its pertinents—almost the sole employment, however, of not a few brains of a considerably higher order. I next laid open the huge eyes. They were curious organs, more simple ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... you. Now, treasure is ticklish work; I don't like treasure-voyages on any account; and I don't like them, above all, when they are secret, and when (begging your pardon, Mr. Trelawney) the secret has been told to the parrot." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... memories. A parrot that belonged to a lady recognised a black servant after three years' absence. Another bird was so fierce that no one in the house liked to touch it, but it would allow a lady visitor to handle it with impunity. It was at last given away, as its ill temper ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... narrow-minded, conceited medico. [Angrily] He shrieks like a parrot at every step: "Make way for honest endeavour!" and thinks himself another St. Francis. Everybody is a rascal who doesn't make as much noise as he does. As for his penetration, it is simply remarkable! If a peasant is well off and lives decently, he ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov
... put in any of them?" Jerry's face showed his disappointment. If not a chimp he had hoped for a parrot ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... female pantaloon. She did not assume any great decrepitude. In the "Cords" scene, where the Nurse tells Juliet of the death of Paris, she did not play for comedy at all, but was very emotional. Her parrot scream when she found me dead was horribly real ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... distribution of functions the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state he is Man thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking. In this view of him, as Man thinking, the theory of his office is continued. Him Nature solicits with all her placid, all her monitory pictures; him the past instructs; ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... sue to be despised than to deceive so good a commander with so slight, so drunken, and so indiscreet an officer. Drunk? and speak parrot? and squabble? swagger? swear? and discourse fustian with one's own shadow? O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... followed to the letter, produced no little agitation at the breakfast table. Jennie simply announced her intention of immediate departure; all questions as to her health, happiness, and possible reasons were met only with a parrot-like repetition of the fact. Upon closer pressing she gave way to hysterical tears, Dorothea the while assisting the scene with round, innocent eyes and the bewildered air of one suddenly made ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... be so frightened at the sight of me that he may die of fear, and I shall never get the crown,' thought the monkey. 'I had better become something else.' And she called softly: 'Parrot, come ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... an' ginger persarves settin' by yer plate, d'ye ask them two old women, in some kind of genteel s'ciety ructions sort o' a way, ter go outer the room an' git ye somethin', an' soon 's they've gone d'ye jump up an' thring a shawl over that darn' parrot o' theirn 't stands there noticin' 'an' swearin', an' chuck 'em in over behind the wood-box or somewhar's, but ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... himself benighted, and came to an Inn. A dark woman opened the door, and he asked her if he could have a bed there. She answered yes, and put his horse in the stable, and took him into a room where there were two dark men. While he was at supper, a parrot in the room began to talk, saying, "Blood, blood! Wipe up the blood!" Upon which one of the dark men wrung the parrot's neck, and said he was fond of roasted parrots, and he meant to have this one for breakfast in the morning. After eating and drinking ...
— The Holly-Tree • Charles Dickens
... curiously shaped and brilliantly colored. Some of the most gorgeous were poisonous to eat, and capable of inflicting very unpleasant wounds with their fins. The captain suffered for a long time with a sort of paralysis in a finger he had scratched when handling a fish with a beak like a parrot.... ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... the Marquis Tudesco. His red waistcoat was gone; instead he wore a sort of sleeved vest of coarse ticking, but his shining face, with the little round eyes and hooked nose, still wore the same look of merry, mischievous alertness that was so like an old parrot's. ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... nose so red, Hank? My father has lots of money. Are the stars hot? I whipped Ed Walker twice, Saturday. I don't like girls. You dassent catch toads unless with a string. Do oxen make any noise? Why are oranges round? Have you got beds to sleep on in this cave? Amos Murray has got six toes. A parrot can talk, but a monkey or a fish can't. How many does it take to ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... fish—groper, the giant perch, king, bonito, rhoombah, sweet-lips, parrot-fish, sea-mullet, and the sting-rays (brown and grey)—a harpoon and long line are used. When iron is not available a point is made of one of the black palms, the barb being strapped on with fibre, the binding being made impervious to water by a liberal coating ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... all the messenger could give only increased Joseph's alarm, and it was with much difficulty that he learnt from him that the master had brought some walnuts to the parrots, and just after giving a nut to the green parrot had cried out to Tobias that a great pain had come into his head. Joseph dug his heels into his ass's side and cried to the messenger: and then? The messenger answered that the pain in the back of his father's head had become so great that he ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... bird—except for stuffing. Old Javvers has the thing now, and I suppose he is almost as proud of it as I am. It is a masterpiece, Bellows. It has all the silly clumsiness of your pelican, all the solemn want of dignity of your parrot, all the gaunt ungainliness of a flamingo, with all the extravagant chromatic conflict of a mandarin duck. Such a bird. I made it out of the skeletons of a stork and a toucan and a job lot of feathers. Taxidermy of ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... we were gods! They moved about us with a kind of ceremony of propitiation. Two youths came with a piece of bark carried like a salver, piled with fruits and with thin cakes of some scraped root. Another brought a parrot, a great green and rose bird that at once talked, though we could not understand his words. Two older men had balls, as large as melons, of some wound stuff that we presently found to be cotton loosely twisted into yarn. The Admiral's eyes glowed. "Now if any ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... But I did tell her that I had some calculations to make for my work, and that was enough. She went on, sweet soul! without speaking a word, with her knitting and her sewing at her end of the table, only getting up to throw a cloth over her parrot's cage when he was noisy; and I sat at my end of the table, at work over my figures, as silent as if I had been ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... designation, together with his "missionary" name "Ebenezer," did not survive the test of usage. Miss Gordon Cumming gives an interesting list of Fijian names translated into English. For women they were such as Spray of the Coral Reef, Queen of Parrot's Land, Queen of Strangers, Smooth Water, Wife of the Morning Star, Mother of Her Grandchildren, Ten Whale's Teeth, Mother of Cockroaches, Lady Nettle, Drinker of Blood, Waited For, Rose of Rewa, Lady Thakombau, Lady Flag, etc. The men's names were such as The Stone ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... free soul of a free, strong man spoke out in his paper. How refreshing was it, after listening to the inanities, the dull, witless vulgarity, the wearisome commonplace of journalists, who had no higher aim than to echo, with parrot-like exactness, current prejudices and falsehoods, to turn to the great and generous thoughts, the chaste and vigorous diction, of the Plaindealer! No man ever had a clearer idea of the duties and responsibilities of a conductor of the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... walnuts, bits of apple and pear, and canary and hemp seed, and also give it a red pepper to pick to pieces. Let it out of its cage to climb about an hour or more every morning. A parrot can not be ...
— Harper's Young People, July 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... getting very clever," she thought, never dreaming that Peter's cleverness, like so many other people's nowadays, consisted in a pertinent use of quotations. Parrot cleverness, we might term it. Leonore listened to the air which the musicians were beginning, and finding it the Lancers, or dreariest of dances, she made Peter happy ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... confinement. Such causes might reduce some of the less observed parts affected by flying, while still leaving the wing of full size for occasional flight, or to suit the requirements of the pigeon-fanciers. A change might thus be commenced like that seen in the rudimentary keel of the sternum in the owl-parrot of New Zealand, which has lost the power of flight although still retaining ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball
... a parrot may rehearse, But talking is not always to converse, Not more distinct from harmony divine The constant creaking of a country sign. Conversation. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... of using them distinctly laid down. The trouble of rightly using such lessons has caused them to be almost entirely laid aside in very many existing infant schools, and in too many instances the mere learning and repeating of sounds by rote, or what may very properly be called the "parrot system," has been introduced in their place. But I yet hope that the good sense of the public will in the end remedy such defects. In such cases the memory is the only faculty exercised, and that at the expense of those that are higher. Where this is persisted in, the infant system is rendered ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... who seemed unable to get beyond the parrot echoing of her questioner's words. "Why Jerome, what makes you think I've seen him since then? Did he say—did ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... Mountains were wicked. But I know Joe isn't—at least, not very. He promised me a monkey and a parrot—a green parrot, when he came back from running away. But he didn't run away, because father found him and took him home. His father gave him an awful thrashing. He often thrashes him, Joe says. Father never thrashes me. What does his father thrash him for?' 'Mr. Mountain's a harder man ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... answered, nettled. "Yours is a curious case, Harburn. Most of our professional Hun-haters have found it a good stunt, or are merely weak sentimentalists; they can drop it easily enough when it ceases to be a good stunt, or a parrot's war-cry. You can't; with you it's mania, religion. When the tide ebbs and leaves you ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... which takes the liberty to differ from other things of its class, as an honest man, a truthful woman, etc. "The exception proves the rule" is an expression constantly upon the lips of the ignorant, who parrot it from one another with never a thought of its absurdity. In the Latin, "Exceptio probat regulam" means that the exception tests the rule, puts it to the proof, not confirms it. The malefactor ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... which was written just before this is called "The Curlytops and their Pets," and tells how the children cared for some dogs, a cat, a monkey, a parrot and an alligator that Uncle Toby left in their charge when he thought he had ...
— The Curlytops and Their Playmates - or Jolly Times Through the Holidays • Howard R. Garis
... have an idea. Billie, why can't you and I teach Jimmie to climb a tree? If we pick out one with branches close together I'm sure he could get up it. We can help him, and he can take hold of some limbs in his bill, like a parrot takes hold of ...
— Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble • Howard R. Garis
... advantage in dry weather. The cart horses were being fed with boiled barley, and looked in first-rate condition. Indeed, all the animals seemed as happy and well-cared for as my host's scores upon scores of pet birds. Birds, however, are capricious, and nothing would induce a beautiful green parrot to cry, "Vive la France" in my presence. After an animated breakfast—thoroughly French breakfast, the best of everything cooked and served in the best possible manner—we took leave, and my young friend drove me back to Vitry to call ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... to perceive, in short, that the difficulty lay in the reconciliation of this monotony with the exercise of reason on the part of the creature repeating the word. Here, then, immediately arose the idea of a non-reasoning creature capable of speech; and very naturally, a parrot, in the first instance, suggested itself, but was superseded forthwith by a Raven as equally capable of speech, and infinitely more in keeping with ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... over the wet thwarts, and I find myself in the stern sheets of the boat. A young Dutchman follows with stolid suddenness. Two Italian gentlemen, weeping, refuse to descend more than half-way, climb back, and are carried on to Haifa. A German lady with a parrot in a cage comes next, and her anxiety for the parrot makes her forget to be afraid. Then comes a little Polish lady, evidently a bride; she shuts her eyes tight and drops into the boat, pale, silent, resolved that she will ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... you have now described are the lot of humanity. So you will feel when I am no more, and so will your children feel when you are dead. But your uncle will come back again, Betsy, and we will now think of where we are to get the cage to keep the talking parrot in, he is to bring home; and go and tell Susan to bring the candles, and ask her if the nice cake is almost baked, that she promised to give us ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... scratching the ground with the foot like the latter. It will feed on many things, such as roots of plants, fruits, and grain, but will eat fish with avidity, dipping them in the water before it swallows them; will frequently stand on one leg and lift the food to its mouth with the other, like a parrot. Its flesh is exquisite in taste. This bird was famous among the ancients under the name Porphyrion, indicating the red or purple tint of its bill and feet—a far more appropriate appellation than that now vulgarly applied to it. It is ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... men on a piece of waste ground outside the town, and all Orte flocked out there as the sun went down, shouting and cheering for me as though Pipistrello were a king or a hero. The populace is always thus—the giddiest-pated fool that ever screamed, as loud and as ignorant as a parrot, as changeful as the wind in March, as base as the cuckoo. The same people threw stones at me when they brought me to this prison—the same people that feasted and applauded me then, that first day of my return to Orte. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... Tietkens. A good camp. Tietkens's birthday creek. Ascend the mountain. No signs of water. Gill's range. Flat-topped hill. The Everard range. High mounts westward. Snail shells. Altitude of the mountain. Pretty scenes. Parrot soup. The sentinel. Thermometer 26 degrees. Frost. Lunar rainbow. A charming spot. A pool of water. Cones of the main range. A new pass. Dreams realised. A long glen. Glen Ferdinand. Mount Ferdinand. The Reid. Large creek. Disturb a native nation. Spears hurled. A regular attack. Repulse and return ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... their existence. All over the country there are lonely women of every class, leisured and working women, pretty and plain, good and bad, who are hungering and thirsting for love, for a man to take care of them, for the right to wifehood and the thrice blessed right to motherhood. In the Press the parrot cry of men echoes ceaselessly: 'Women shouldn't meddle in politics; women shouldn't do this or that—let them mind their homes and their children.' But the restless women who do these things have generally no homes or children to mind; what is the use of preaching ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... Ods, my little heart! Miss, why so impatient? Hav'n't you as genteel a parlour as any lady in the land could wish to sit down in?—The bed's turn'd up in a chest of drawers that's stain'd to look like mahogany:—there's two poets, and a poll parrot, the best images the jew had on his head, over the mantlepiece; and was I to leave you all alone by yourself, isn't there an eight day clock in the corner, that when one's waiting, lonesome like, for any body, keeps going tick-tack, ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... great forests and maintain themselves almost entirely on the fruit of the trees; they have no domicile, nor fixed settlements that are known; there are very great rivers, and the land is so useless that it paid all its tribute to the lords in parrot feathers.[97] ...
— An Account of the Conquest of Peru • Pedro Sancho
... presently they were heard again, closer than before, and then a big, gorgeously feathered parrot flew out of a clump of trees not ten ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... fool's job, for it requires mental as well as muscular energy; and no apologies should be expected from those who necessarily make use of technical terms in the discussion of this technical subject, notwithstanding the common foolish advice that farmers should be given a sort of "parrot" instruction in almost baby language instead of established facts and principles in definite and permanent scientific terms. The farmer should be as familiar with the names of the ten essential elements of plant food ...
— The Farm That Won't Wear Out • Cyril G. Hopkins
... with his merry laugh, "it is not the teacher's fault. I am a mere parrot; just cry out a few scraps of learning picked up here and there. But, however, I am fond of all researches into Nature; all guesses at her riddles. To tell you the truth, one reason why I have taken to you so heartily is not only that your published work caught my fancy in the dip ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... were in his way and though he ordered them back, they continued running about and getting in his way. In a very short while the Captain lost patience and commenced to talk loudly and with excitement; immediately Sipsoo took up his language and parrot-like started to repeat the Captain's exact words: "Get back there, get back—how in —— do you expect me to make a landing?" And thus does the innocent lamb of the North acquire a ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... called Hookey. His nose resembled that of a parrot and he had the disposition of a locoed coyote, according to Pug and Slats. Hookey took a dislike to Pan, and always sought to arouse the boy's temper. These cowboys were always gone in the morning before Pan got up, but by the time he arrived home from school on Pilldarlick ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... drugged stuff, Storming all aboard from his run-ashore late, Challenging to battle, vouchsafing no pretenses, A reeling King Ogg, delirious in power, The quarter-deck carronades he seemed to make cower. "Put him in brig there!" said Lieutenant Marrot. "Put him in brig!" back he mocked like a parrot; "Try it, then!" swaying a fist like Thor's sledge, And making the pigmy constables hedge— Ship's corporals and the master-at-arms. "In brig there, I say!"—They dally no more; Like hounds let slip on a desperate boar, ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... mask is an eagle plume with parrot plumes; an eagle plume is at each side, and one at the bottom of the mask. The hair around the head and face is red like fire, and when it moves and shakes people cannot look closely at the mask. It is not intended that they should observe ...
— Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest • Katharine Berry Judson
... parrot had called "Clarissa" a dozen times at least, and was listening with his cunning head on one side for footsteps on the stairs. Breakfast was ready; an urn, shaped something like a sepulchral monument, was steaming ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... protection of the King, who also condoned the severities directed against himself. His latter days were spent at The Mount, where he d. His chief writings are The Dreme, written 1528, The Complaynt to the King (1529), The Testament and Complaynt of our Soverane Lord's Papyngo (Parrot) (1530), Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Three Estaitis, A Dialogue betwixt Experience and a Courtier (1552), The Monarchy (1554), and The History of Squyer Meldrum. L. was a true poet, gifted with fancy, humour, and a powerful ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... in New York City owned a pet parrot and a large house cat. The parrot was just as full of mischief as could be. One day the cat and parrot had a quarrel. I think the cat had upset Polly's food, or something of that kind. However, they seemed all ...
— Fun And Frolic • Various
... She could never understand that they had no place for her vulgar charity, that their life was filled with a fragrance of perfection for which she had no sense fine enough. She was as undomestic as a shop-front and as out of tune as a parrot. She would either make them live in the streets or bring the streets into their life—it was the same thing. She had evidently never read a book, and she used intonations that Adela had never heard, as if she had been an Australian ...
— The Marriages • Henry James
... above the drawers pictures of the kind of animals that were fed on the kind of things that the shop sold. Fat, oblong cows that had eaten Burley's Cattle Food, stout pillows of wool that Ovis's Sheep Spice had fed, and, brightest and best of all, an incredibly smooth-plumaged parrot, rainbow-colored, cocking a black eye bright with the intoxicating qualities ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... quite distinct varieties of the Tulip. There is an early sort, a medium one, a late one, and the Parrot, which is prized more for its striking combinations of brilliant colors than for its beauty of form or habit. We have single and double varieties in all the classes, all coming in a wide range of both rich and delicate colors. Scarlets, crimsons, and yellows predominate, but the pure whites, ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... flute, bamboo drum, the melodrama was begun. The hero pranced into the open square to the tune of a minor dirge, not knowing a single sentence of his part; the prompter, kneeling down before a flaring candle, told him what to say; he repeated in parrot-like fashion, and then pranced off the square to slow dirge-like music. Now the heroine minced in from the opposite corner to slow music with her satin train sweeping in the dust; though carefully raised when she crossed the sacred precincts of the square, and in a sauntering way, with ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... form and colour. Butterflies of unusual size flitted about from flower to flower, and the upper branches of the trees were fairly alive with birds of the most brilliant plumage, among which he noticed two or three varieties of the parrot tribe, whilst birds of paradise were there in such numbers that he thought he might not inappropriately name his new domain "Paradise Island." Where the ground was sufficiently open to permit of their growth, flowering shrubs and plants with blossoms and blooms ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... there see the Hog-fish, the Dog-fish, the Dolphin, the Cony- fish, the Parrot-fish, the Shark, the Poison-fish, Sword-fish, and not only other incredible fish, but you may there see the Salamander, several sorts of Barnacles, of Solan-Geese, the Bird of Paradise, such sorts of Snakes, and such Birds'-nests, and of so various forms, and ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... youthful perversity, or from prior association, or, as is most likely, by the attraction of antagonism, the fair, gentle, intellectual peasant boy adored the dark, fiery, imperious young patrician who loved, petted, and patronized him only as if he had been a wonderfully learned pig or very accomplished parrot! Bee knew this; but the pure love of her sweet spirit was incapable of jealousy, and when she saw that Ishmael loved Claudia best, she herself saw reason in that for esteeming her cousin higher than she had ever done before! If Ishmael loved Claudia so much, then Claudia must be ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Admiral Lord Clarence Paget, H.M., accompanies Stillman "on the track of Ulysses" Palinode Pall Mall Gazette, Stillman contributes to is dropped from Palmerston, Lord Paris, visits to Parnell case, Stillman's search for evidence connected with Parrot, a pet Parthenios Kelaides, in the Cretan insurrection Pashley, Robert Paul Smith's Hotel Pavlovich, Peko, commands Montenegrin troops in Herzegovinian insurrection, Peirce, Professor Benjamin Pesth Petropoulaki, Grecian officer in Crete Petrovich, "Bozo" (Bozidar) Phi Beta Kappa Society ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... collections of the voyage were eight or nine new species of birds, and about seven others previously known only as inhabitants of New Guinea and the neighbouring islands.* The first of these which came under my notice was an enormous black parrot (Microglossus aterrimus) with crimson cheeks; at Cape York it feeds upon the cabbage of various palms, stripping down the sheath at the base of the leaves with its powerful, acutely-hooked upper mandible. The next in order of occurrence was a third species of the genus Tanysiptera ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... well versed in politics for a lad of his age, and could discuss glibly the right of Parliament to tax the colonies. He denounced the seditious doings in Annapolis and Boston Town with an air of easy familiarity, for Philip had the memory of a parrot, and 'twas easy to perceive whence his knowledge sprang. But when my fine master spoke disparagingly of the tradesmen as at the bottom of the trouble, my grandfather's patience came to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... no more about it; but on that account, I daresay, like the famous parrot, "they thought the more." And once or twice that afternoon, Fixie could not help whispering to Bee, "Do you fink mamma's going to get the beads hooked out?" or, "I hope they won't hurt the mouses that lives down in the hole. Do you fink the ...
— Rosy • Mrs. Molesworth
... given an account of Minnie's pet parrot, and of Minnie's pet cat. In this volume I shall give the reader an account of her pet dog, Tiney, with anecdotes ...
— Minnie's Pet Dog • Madeline Leslie
... pigtail,—emblems of half a million,—returned to his native shores from Ceylon or remote Penang. For me, no venerable spinster hoarded in the Trongate, permitting herself few luxuries during a long protracted life, save a lass and a lanthorn, a parrot, and the invariable baudrons of antiquity. No such luck was mine. Had all Glasgow perished by some vast epidemic, I should not have found myself one farthing the richer. There would have been no golden balsam for me in the accumulated ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... if the Banshee storm Knocked screaming for his withered form; It shrieked and whistled like a parrot, Clucking and stuttering through the garret. With-out, the mailed hands of hail Battered the casements, and the gale About his low roof shuddered, sighing, As if it knew that he was dying. It breathed like waiting ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... sitting on the ground, leaned his back against a tree and grinned amiably at his questioner. "Sounds like you-all been to school to a parrot. You must 'a' quituated after ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... of the tree and coats it with the same material, so as to render it impervious to the rain. The seeds from the cones form its chief food, and it extracts them with its curious bill, the two parts of which cross each other. It grasps the cone with its foot, after the fashion of a parrot, and digs into it with the upper part of its bill, which is like a hook, and forces out the ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... have been translated into many languages; into English by Rockliffe (3rd edition, 1866). The fable in question describes how, at a picnic of the animals, a discussion arose as to which of them carried off the palm for superiority of talent. The praises of the ant, the dog, the bee, and the parrot were sung in turn; but at last the ostrich stood up and declared for the dromedary. Whereupon the dromedary stood up and declared for the ostrich. No one could discover the reason for this mutual compliment. ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... pass of the Alps that may be open, to Strasburg. . . . As you dislike the Young England gentleman I shall knock him out, and replace him by a man (I can dash him in at your rooms in an hour) who recognizes no virtue in anything but the good old times, and talks of them, parrot-like, whatever the matter is. A real good old city tory, in a blue coat and bright buttons and a white cravat, and with a tendency of blood to the head. File away at Filer, as you please; but bear in mind that the Westminster Review ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... of Engine No. 36, famous three years ago. That was on Seventh Avenue at One Hundred and Thirty-fourth Street. A flat was on fire, and the tenants had fled; but one, a woman, bethought herself of her parrot, and went back for it, to find escape by the stairs cut off when she again attempted to reach the street. With the parrot-cage, she appeared at the top-floor window, framed in smoke, calling for help. Again there ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... religion. The members of the tribunal demanded "who the boy was with the bleeding nose?" and "why were halberdiers admitted?" Veronese replied that they were the sort of servants a rich and magnificent host would have about him. He was then asked why he had introduced the buffoon with a parrot on his hand. He replied that he really thought only Christ and His Apostles were present, but that when he had a little space over, he adorned it with imaginary figures. This defence of the vast and crowded canvas did not commend itself, and ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... much; but, like the seaman's parrot in the tale, I have thought a deal. You have never, by the way, returned me either Spring or Beranger, which is certainly a d——d shame. I always comforted myself with that when my conscience pricked me about a letter to you. "Thus conscience"—O no, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of India are fond of rearing pet birds; and the pet is, more frequently than otherwise, a parrot, which is prized for its conversation. The same taste prevailed, we are told, in the fifteenth century, in the city of Paris, where talking-birds were hung out almost at every window. The authority says, that this was attended with rather an awkward ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... garden stuff they show has allers been disgraceful, and yet, sometimes they interfere with him and take a prize for flowers. 'That shows they know their own business,' says I; 'it don't follow that because my parrot can talk, my dog's obstinate because he won't learn his letters.' 'Mr. Swan,' says he, 'you're so smothered in illustrations, there's no argufying with you.' Master Johnnie, you was to drink your beef ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... Beholding the Apsara in those woods, the illustrious Rishi Vyasa, O Yudhishthira, became suddenly smitten with desire. The Apsara (Ghritachi), seeing the Rishi's heart troubled by desire, transformed herself into a she-parrot and came to that spot. Although he beheld the Apsara disguised in another form, the desire that had arisen in the Rishi's heart (without disappearing) spread itself over every part of his body. Summoning all his patience, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... smoky sunshine; he would have glistened twice as brightly among the summer islands, but still he has become a citizen in all his tastes and habits, and would not sing half so well without the uproar that drowns his music. What a pity that he does not know how miserable he is! There is a parrot, too, calling out, "Pretty Poll! Pretty Poll!" as we pass by. Foolish bird, to be talking about her prettiness to strangers, especially as she is not a pretty Poll, though gaudily dressed in green and yellow! If she had said "Pretty Annie!" there would ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a parrot in the portrait of some fine frivolous lady do so to heighten their interpretation of character. We all betray our natures, by the creatures we instinctively gather about us. One might know that Jefferson ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... desolate country covered with thick jungle. In the midst of the jungle grows a circle of palm trees, and in the center of the circle stand six chattees full of water, piled one above another: below the sixth chattee is a small cage which contains a little green parrot; on the life of the parrot depends my life; and if the parrot is killed I must die. It is. however," he added, "impossible that the parrot should sustain any injury, both on account of the inaccessibility of the country, and because, by my appointment, ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... boat. Again, beautiful birds were seen, among them, some cockatoos which were perfectly black "excepting the breast and a few feathers on the wing which were yellow." They were so shy that no one could get near them. Other birds were killed—whose flesh, when cooked, was very palatable; that of the parrot resembled our pigeon in taste—"possibly because they feed on ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... grief to Tooni, who could not understand it; but Sonny Sahib perversely refused to talk in his own tongue. She did all she could to help him. When he was a year old she cut an almond in two, and gave half to Sonny Sahib and half to the green parrot that swung all day in a cage in the door of the hut and had a fine gift of conversation; if anything would make the baby talk properly that would. Later on she taught him all the English words she remembered herself, ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... country, and bought inlaid-wood paper-cutters and silk socks and neckties and hat-bands, enough, in truth, to last him for several generations; another week in Capri, where, at the Zum Kater Hidigeigei, he exchanged compliments with the green parrot, drank good beer, played batseka (a game of billiards) with the exiles (for Capri has as many as Cairo!) and beat them out of sundry lire, toiled up to the ledge where the playful Tiberius (see guide-books) tipped over his whilom favorites, bought a marine daub; and then back ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... flowers and grass, and full of very fine woods. I saw abundance of parrots, and fain would I have caught one, if possible, to have kept it to be tame, and taught it to speak to me. I did, after some painstaking, catch a young parrot; for I knocked it down with a stick, and having recovered it, I brought it home, but it was some years before I could make him speak. However, at last I taught him to call me by my name very familiarly: but the accident that followed, though it be a trifle, will be very ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... feet in diameter, and somewhat dome-shaped. I should have taken them for wasps' nests, but the party insisted that they saw parrots come out of them, and that no doubt young parrots were in the nests. Immediately there was great excitement, for Manuel had all along wanted to capture a parrot to take home with him. The party stopped, and stones were thrown to drive out the birds, but with no result. Finally Mariano climbed the tree, creeping out along the branches almost to the nest; just at that moment an unusually well-aimed stone struck the nest, but instead of parrots, out ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... daugher of the old head-keeper of streams and forests, Gendrin-Wattebled; was in 1823 physician at Soulanges and attended Michaud. Nevertheless he went among the best people of Soulanges, headed by Mme. Soudry, who regarded him in the light of an unknown and neglected savant, when he was but a parrot of Buffon and Cuvier, a simple collector and ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... increased with the passing of the hours he gave expression to one solitary cry—"For God's sake shoot me!" The wail, uttered with parrot-like repetition and in a tone which bored into the soul, stirred the prisoners within earshot in a strange manner. They clapped their hands over their ears to shut out the awful sound, and shut their eyes to prevent the revolting spectacle burning into their ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... must borrow every changing shape To find expression... dance, dance Like a dancing bear, Cry like a parrot, chatter like an ape. Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance— Well! and what if she should die some afternoon, Afternoon grey and smoky, evening yellow and rose; Should die and leave me sitting pen in hand With the ...
— Poems • T. S. [Thomas Stearns] Eliot
... Audubon relates an incident that occurred when he was a child, which he thinks first kindled his love for birds. It was an encounter between a pet parrot and a tame monkey kept by his mother. One morning the parrot, Mignonne, asked as usual for her breakfast of bread and milk, whereupon the monkey, being in a bad humour, attacked the poor defenceless bird, and killed it. Audubon screamed at the cruel sight, and implored ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... golden-crested, made of tempered steel and bright, Parrot feathers wing these arrows, whetted and ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... a large gilt parrot-cage. She swept up the gangway of the Fall of Rome and was enthusiastically received. There were, however, concealed titterings and suppressed whispers. "My sakes! She's went and ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... sure," added Mark. "A man who had a horse or a dog for companion could not go off his head. Look at Robinson Crusoe; he was jolly enough with a poll parrot." ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... knees before The goddess Venus, and to Bacchus fell A willing victim; while his babbling mouth Did spew dire boastings of official pull, While Folly's goblet filled unto the brim Slopped over, when in wordy contest, he With green-winged parrot did engage, and fain Its neck would there have wrung because its hue Proclaimed not sympathy with those who bear The orange flag when they procession make! The guardsmen of the peace should ever soar On wings of probity and moral worth As Erin's Isle had furnished many such I deemed I'd found a ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... witnesses examined, John Hancock, parson of South Parrot, and Richard Bagage, churchwarden of Lo, no information was obtained. The third witness, John Jesopp, minister, of Gillingham, "said nothing of his own knowledge, but had heard that one Herryott, of Sir Walter Rawleigh his house, had brought the Godhead in question, ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... found in Java are peculiar to it, while of those inhabiting Sumatra at least two extend to Malacca and one to Borneo. There are a very large number of birds, such as the great Argus pheasant, the fire-backed and ocellated pheasants, the crested partridge (Rollulus coronatus), the small Malacca parrot (Psittinus incertus), the great helmeted hornbill (Buceroturus galeatus), the pheasant ground-cuckoo (Carpococcyx radiatus), the rose-crested bee-eater (Nyctiornis amicta), the great gaper (Corydon sumatranus), ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... thither at the top of his speed. Puss, too, by erecting her tail, and by every time raising her back to meet the caressing hand of her mistress, similarly expresses her gratification by certain muscular actions; as likewise do the parrot by awkward dancing on his perch, and the canary by hopping and fluttering about his cage with unwonted rapidity. Under emotions of an opposite kind, animals equally display muscular excitement. The ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... went by, the night seemed to grow darker, so that all seemed hopeless and lost. At this point relief and strength came from an unexpected source. This Southern white man's idea of Negro education had been that it merely meant a parrot-like absorption of Anglo-Saxon civilisation, with a special tendency to imitate the weaker elements of the white man's character; that it meant merely the high hat, kid gloves, a showy walking cane, patent leather shoes, and all the rest of it. To this ex-master it seemed impossible that the education ...
— The Future of the American Negro • Booker T. Washington
... will rejoice, no doubt, at his downfall. A crowd of imbeciles. In his abasement he was yet aware of his superiority over those fellows, who were merely honest or simply not found out yet. A crowd of imbeciles! He shook his fist at the evoked image of his friends, and the startled parrot fluttered its wings and shrieked in ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... tables and chairs and reeking with the stench, left over from the previous night, of whiskey fumes and stale tobacco smoke. Monte Joe professed not to know where the puncher had gone, but as Trowbridge pressed him for information the voice of a woman, as shrill as the squawk of a parrot, floated down from ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... not know, because we have not learnt it," whispered Benny in my ear, digging me with his elbow. I repeated his words, like a parrot. And the "Cheder" ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... the bend to the L. Side we Killed a large rattle Snake, Sunning himself in the bank passed a bad Sand bar, where our tow rope broke twice, & with great exertions we rowed round it and Came to & Camped in the Point above the Kansas River lobserved a great number of Parrot queets this evening, our Party Killed Several 7 ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... forgotten that I ever acted. You will remember that I refused to assist in the amateur theatricals last winter. Act? I hate the word. It suggests the puppet, the living in other people's worlds, parrot-wise, in imitation." ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... whatever share of imagination, observation, and insight an ordinary person may be heir to. To a teacher of languages there comes a time when the world is but a place of many words and man appears a mere talking animal not much more wonderful than a parrot. ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... your bedroom with all my possessions," returned Flamant heartily. "I have a stuffed parrot that is most decorative, but I have not a friend that ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... sings the same quiet tune,—as much the same and as different as Now and Then. The house full of old family relics and pictures, the sun shining on them through the small deep windows with their plate glass; and there, blinking at the sun, and chattering contentedly, is a parrot, that might, for its looks of eld, have been in the ark, and domineered over and deaved the dove. Everything about the place is old ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... sleepy, not bad-looking young fellow, clad in greasy red shirt, greasy breeches and boots, and whose shabby plated spurs were tangled in the dirty blankets. He was lying on his back, playing with a beautiful little parrot. Opposite him, sitting up in his bunk, was another young fellow, with a singularly coarse, repulsive countenance, long yellow hair, half-way down his back, clothed like the other in greasy breeches. This last one was puffing at a short black pipe, ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... storehouse. Now to reverse this process, to occupy the immature mind of childhood chiefly with the cultivation of faculties which are of later growth, and actually to put shackles and restraints upon the memory, nicknaming and ridiculing all memoriter exercises as parrot performances, is to ignore one of the primary facts of human nature. It is to be ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... not? What is it but cowardice, very pitiable when unmasked; and what is its child but ignorance as pitiable, which would be ludicrous were it not so injurious? If a man comes up to Nature as to a parrot or a monkey, with this prevailing thought in his head—Will it bite me?—will he not be pretty certain to make up his mind that it may bite him, and had therefore best be left alone? It is only the man of courage—few and far between—who will stand the chance of a first ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... or a civilian engaged on war work, describing events within his own experience that reduced to utter absurdity the ravings and maunderings of his daily paper, and yet echo the opinions of that paper like a parrot. Thus, to escape from the prevailing confusion and folly, it was not enough to seek the company of the ordinary man of action: one had to get into contact with the master spirits. This was a privilege which only a handful of people could enjoy. For ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... have looked at a fellah like me,—he said,—but I come pretty near tryin'. If she had said, Yes, though, I shouldn't have known what to have done with her. Can't marry a woman now-a-days till you're so deaf you have to cock your head like a parrot to hear what she says, and so long-sighted you can't see what she looks like ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... shall be mine; Of which had Horace or Anacreon tasted, Their lives, as do their lines, till now had lasted. Tobacco, nectar, or the Thespian spring, Are all but Luther's beer, to this I sing, Of this we will sup free, but moderately, And we will have no Pooly', or Parrot by; Nor shall our cups make any guilty men: But at our parting, we will be, as when We innocently met. No simple word, That shall be utter'd at our mirthful board, Shall make us sad next morning; or affright The liberty, that ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 237, May 13, 1854 • Various |
